The majority of cancer treatments are selected to inhibit or reduce a cancer cells ability to survive and/or their ability to divide to form more cancer cells. While currently there are many cancer treatments that are prescribed to help an individual suffering from a cancer that have one or both of these abilities, it is worth noting that these same cancer treatments have several shortcomings. Among these are that an individual administered the treatment can suffer from a serious side effect. In addition, many treatments are cancer specific and only work on one type of cancer. Finally, their use is generally very costly and beyond the reach of a large number of individuals suffering from a cancer. What is needed is a treatment that has the ability to inhibit or reduce a cancer cells ability to survive and/or divide while at the same time the treatment: (1) is tolerated by an individual; (2) works against many different cancers; and, (3) is affordable so that all individuals suffering from a cancer can be administered the treatment.
Currently, there are whole classes of therapeutics that are administered to individuals who suffer from a genetic, metabolic or other disease or from a disease caused by a bacteria, virus or parasite (a “disease treating therapeutic”) that treat the disease by inhibiting or reducing the ability of a cell to survive and/or divide. In particular, these disease therapeutics act by: (1) inhibiting or reducing the amount of lipids, other fats and/or cholesterol taken up by cells; and/or (2) inhibiting or reducing the ability of a cell to take up or utilize glucose or another energy source. While these disease treating therapeutics act in a manner that can treat a cancer, currently they are not prescribed to patients suffering from cancer.
Thus, it would be advantageous to use a disease treating therapeutic to treat cancer (hereinafter a “cancer therapeutic”). Such a cancer therapeutic can be administered to an individual either solely or in combination with one or more of additional cancer therapeutics to treat a cancer. Moreover, as these cancer therapeutics affect a cancer cells metabolism and ability to divide, they can be used against multiple different cancer types, and in some instances, all cancers.
Most cancer therapeutics are provided to a patient suffering from a cancer using a formulation that enables the therapeutic to dissolve in an aqueous solution that will mix with the patients plasma following transfusion. These formulations are more concerned with solubility and are not generally designed to enhance the effectiveness of the cancer therapeutic. One means of increasing the effectiveness of therapeutics that has been successful in the past is the use of lipid formulations. Lipid formulations have been shown to increase the effectiveness of certain classes of drugs, such as NSAIDs, while reducing some of their adverse side effects.
Among the classes of cancer therapeutics that would benefit from a lipid formulation are Artemisinin and its derivatives. Artemisinin is purified from the leaves of Artemisia annua (annual wormwood). The drug is named Qinghaosu in Chinese. Artemisia annua is a common herb and has been found in many parts of the world. Artemisinin, and its derivatives are a group of drugs that are known to have a rapid action in patients for the treatment of Plasmodium falciparum malaria. Treatments containing an artemisinin derivative (artemisinin-combination therapies, ACTs) are now standard treatment worldwide for P. falciparum malaria.
Use of the drug by itself as a monotherapy is explicitly discouraged by the World Health Organization, as there have been signs that malarial parasites are developing resistance to the drug. Therapies that combine artemisinin with some other antimalarial drug are the preferred treatment for malaria and are both effective and well tolerated in patients. The drug is also increasingly being used in Plasmodium vivax malaria, as well as being a topic of research in cancer treatment (http://en.wikipedia.org).
Because artemisinin itself has physical properties such as poor bioavailability that limit its effectiveness, semisynthetic derivatives of artemisinin have been developed. These include: Artesunate, Artemether, Dihydroartemisinin, Artelinic acid, Artenimol and Artemotil. There are also simplified analogs in preclinical research, including, arterolane.
Artemisinin and its derivatives have been shown in some studies to have some anticancer and antitumor activity. For instance, Arthemether has shown a strong inhibitory effects on brain glioma growth and angiogenesis in rats. It has also shown a dose- and time-dependent cytotoxicity that induced apoptosis and G2 cell cycle arrest in ovarian cancer cell lines, human leukemia HL60 cells, and human pancreatic cancer BxPC-3 and AsPC-1 cells. Dihydroartemisinin and other artemisinin-based endoperoxide compounds have been found to target human metastatic melanoma cells with induction of NOXA-dependent mitochondrial apoptosis that occurs downstream of iron-dependent generation of cytotoxic oxidative stress.
Other cancer therapeutics include drugs used as part of a chemotherapy regimen, including, alkylating agents, antimetabolites, anthracyclines, plant alkaloids, topoisomerase inhibitors, and other antitumour agents. Other cancer therapeutics include monoclonal antibodies and the new tyrosine kinase inhibitors, which directly target a molecular abnormality in certain types of cancer. Each of these other cancer therapeutics could benefit from a formulation that results in a maintenance or reduction of the number of cancer cells a patient has or the size of one or more tumors present in a patient.
While these cancer therapeutics function for their intended purpose, their effectiveness can be improved through a formulation that enhances their ability to act on their target cells. One means of doing this is to formulate cancer therapeutics in a lipid formulation.